The Royal & Ancient continues as a very profitable organisation, mainly due to the commercial success of the (British) Open Championship, according to its annual Review of 2006 which shows a surplus of �9million-plus for a second consecutive year.

With 57 broadcasters at last year's Open they reached 410million households and 162 territories making this one of the largest annual televised sporting events.

This has helped the R&A to extend its influence with the national golfing bodies of Saudi Arabia, Mongolia, the Caribbean and Jordan joining the list of almost 120 affiliate countries who happily line-up at the door with their begging baskets for a share of the largesse distributed by a body intent on widening and tightening its embrace of world golf. Only the USGA stands between it and virtually total world dominance.

One thousand sets of childrens' clubs were sent to developing golf nations including Botswana, Croatia, Honduras, India, Rwanda, Tanzania and Trinidad & Tobago.

One hundred officials were trained in the Rules of Golf in China where the stock of golf courses is now fast approaching 500.

IRISH CLUBS SET FOR FACELIFT

Irish golf clubs continue to invest heavily in their courses with Courtown and Tramore being amongst those engaged in planning at this time.

The Courtown club is considering expenditure of over /1million on works which will include a new entrance, new locker-rooms, a new pro-shop and terrace, and big improvements to the machinery yard. Talk of a levy of /200 per person for a couple of years but a recent EGM sent the plans back to the drawing-board for review.

In Tramore, it has been decided that work should proceed on the creation of nine new holes and the redevelopment of the existing 18-hole course to bring it into line with the demands of modern championship play. The new-look Tramore will be unveiled in 2009.

DELANEY TO REPRESENT IRISH HALF OF GB&I

Tara Delaney is our only representative on the team elected by the Ladies' Golf Union to compete in the Vagliano Trophy against the Continent of Europe at Fairmont St Andrews on July 27-28.

All five players who won the Commonwealth Tournament for Britain last month in South Africa have been selected which means slim pickings for everyone else. The five, Krystle Caithness, Naomi Edwards, Breanne Loucks, Melissa Reid and Kerry Smith are joined by Delaney and Rachel Bell, Liz Bennett and Sahra Hassan in the defence of the title that GB&I won at Chantilly, France in 2005. This year Edwards won the English Close Championship, beating Melissa Reid in the final, while Hassan was a semi-finalist in the Welsh Championship and also reached the quarter-finals of the British Championship in Leeds.

OOPS

In last week's column relating to the British Amateur Championship, I failed to name Brian McElhinney as the winner of the 2005 Championship at Royal Birkdale.

This brings the number of Irish winners in the championship to six.

THERE is nobody more proud than a proud golf professional. Having devoted their lives to the game, and to the business of caring for the golfing needs of the amateurs of the species, they exude personality and goodwill. But challenge their patch deliberately or otherwise and a totally new animal emerges.

The late Phil Lawlor was a magnificent example. No more amiable man ever donned spikes than the Curragh professional of longstanding and when one played with him in a fourball and played a decent shot he would throw a gigantic arm about one's shoulders and whisper:

"Paddy, we pros must stick together."

Great. But come the day that we were in opposition and one played a poor shot.

The same arm would encircle one and the whisper would change to: "Paddy, you amateurs will never learn."

One of the best illustrations of the proud professional stung into action was provided by the legendary duel between Leonard Owens, the resident professional, and the late Frank Carthy at Royal Dublin many years ago.

Maybe they had been socialising a bit too vigorously and Owens felt goaded. In any case, Carthy was delighted when the professional issued a challenge for a match for �1,000, which was the equivalent to maybe 15,000 in today's money, despite the fact that Carthy was a 16handicapper and that the match was to be played off scratch.

The equaliser in the situation was that Owens, a righthanded player, would have to play left-handed and would have just three months to learn to do so.